GNU bug report logs - #61884
add an option to du that allows to control which file types are counted

Previous Next

Full log

View this message in rfc822 format

From: Christoph Anton Mitterer <calestyo <at> scientia.org>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>, 61884 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#61884: add an option to du that allows to control which file types are counted
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2023 00:33:00 +0100

On Sat, 2023-03-04 at 14:58 -0800, Paul Eggert wrote:
> What's the motivation here? Does this have something to do with 
> reproducible builds?

No, nothing with reproducibility - at least not from my side. It's
really just to get a number for the "actual" data. And yes it's clear
that one can argue what that actually is ;-) ... but at least I think
it should give the same totals for the same files (of any type) on any
filesystem.


> One possibility is for --apparent-size to always count 0 for 
> directories, since 'read' never returns a positive number on 
> directories. That is, we reinterpret --apparent-size to mean "bytes
> that 
> could be read" rather than "what st_size says".

Sounds like having a good potential for breaking existing stuff.

And in a way solve the fundamental problem only partially:

As said above, it's not even clear what "actual" or "pristine" data
should actually be.

I would say that it's at least independent of any underlying structures
(like meta data of a filesystem or e.g. header data in a tar archive).

But would symlinks (i.e. their length) count for it?
What about hardlinked files, would they count once or n times?


du already allows to select what it should do for hard links (-l) so I
figured it would fit conceptually if it would allow the same for file
types.
E.g. with a --type option that takes a string of (1-n) letter like
find:
              b      block (buffered) special
              c      character (unbuffered) special
              d      directory
              p      named pipe (FIFO)
              f      regular file
              l      symbolic link
              s      socket
              D      door (Solaris)

If --type is given only the files with letters are counted (but it has
no effect on whether such files are followed or recursed into (in the
case of d or l).


But anyway... as said previously... I already have my script that does
more or less what I want.
So if you think the whole idea is overkill for du, then don't hesitate
to close as wontfix.


Cheers,
Chris.

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.